Tilly Norwood is an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated character created in 2025 by Xicoia, the AI division of the production company Particle6 Group. Norwood's debut work, "AI Commissioner", was criticised by reviewers for The Guardian, PC Gamer, and The A.V. Club. An announcement at the September 2025 Zurich Film Festival that Norwood was about to be signed by a talent agency attracted strong criticism from Hollywood actors and firms, prompted allegations of personality rights violations, and led to arguments over the impact of the character on production costs in the media industry.
Norwood was created by Xicoia, the AI division of Particle6, a production company founded by Dutch actress-turned-producer Eline Van der Velden in 2015.[1] An Instagram account under Norwood's name, with posts dating back to the 6th of May 2025,[2] had gained 50,000 followers by October 3[3] and featured AI-generated modelling shots, selfies, and epic film scenes.[4] Van der Velden stated in July 2025 that she intended Norwood to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman[5] and later that audiences were more interested in a film's story than whether its actors were real.[6] Particle6 has stated that using Norwood could cut production costs by 90%.[7]
The "AI Commissioner" comedy sketch
On 30 July 2025, a film named "AI Commissioner" featuring and crediting Norwood as an actress[8] was released, a comedy sketch created with ten AI software tools and written by ChatGPT.[9] "AI Commissioner" featured 16 AI-generated characters in all.[10] Writing in September 2025, Stuart Heritage of The Guardian described it as technically competent but "relentlessly unfunny to watch," with "sloppily written, woodenly delivered dialogue",[11] and that Norwood's teeth kept "blurring into a single white block."[11] Joshua Wolens of PC Gamer wrote that Norwood's exaggerated mouth movements gave the impression "that her skeleton was about to leave her body,"[12] while William Hughes of The A.V. Club wrote that the sketch's attempt at mimicking human body and mouth movements produced "such a hideous uncanny valley effect" that it gave them "a full-on case of the screaming fantods".[13] By October 2, the sketch had been viewed more than 700,000 times on YouTube.[14]
Eline van der Velden
By September, videos had been released depicting Norwood on a red carpet, crying on the sofa of The Graham Norton Show, and starring in mock trailers for sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and action films.[7] Xicoia was officially announced on 27 September 2025, at the Zurich Summit, part of the Zurich Film Festival;[15][16] there, van der Velden presented on Norwood and later joined a panel with Verena Puhm, head of Luma AI's Studio Dream Lab LA. They suggested that media companies were quietly embracing AI and that public announcements of AI-generated works were imminent. Van der Velden claimed that studios had dropped their objections by May after being opposed in February, and that multiple talent agencies were considering representing Norwood.[16] The latter claim was printed as fact by Deadline Hollywood under the headline "Talent Agents Circle AI Actress Tilly Norwood", causing massive controversy.[17]
Following this criticism, Van der Velden released a statement in which she stated that Norwood was "not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work."[15] Moises Mendez II of Out dismissed this "vapid bullshit", arguing that "Nobody wants AI actresses."[27] The British union Equity and the Canadian union ACTRA also condemned Norwood.[28]
Commentary
Charles Pulliam-Moore of The Verge argued that Norwood's introduction was a stunt to normalize "AI actors" despite Norwood essentially being a digital puppet.[29] Christopher Zara of Fast Company wrote that Norwood's Wikipedia talk page featured passionate arguments about whether to describe Norwood as an actress, or even to use the pronoun she, which he said offered "a fascinating window into the semantic debates that our society is facing more broadly" as a result of spending increasing amounts of screen time with anthropomorphic AI-generated objects.[4]
Straight Arrow News compared Tilly Norwood to Aki Ross, a CGI character from 2001 that was similarly intended to become a "digital star" and appear in multiple films,[30] while The Conversation likened her to the posthumous use of footage of Carrie Fisher for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in 2019[31] and the Los Angeles Times likened Norwood to Hatsune Miku.[32] Scottish actress Briony Monroe alleged that her likeness and mannerisms had gone into Norwood, and stated that she was consulting Equity regarding the matter.[33] Indie musician Stella Hennen said that Norwood was her "doppleganger" in a viral TikTok video that featured a side-by-side comparison of Hennen and Norwood.[34]
The University of Southern California's Entertainment Technology Center's AI media director Yves Bergquist dismissed the idea of AI actors, on the grounds that there were no successful AI musicians,[35] though Fiona Sturges of The Independent pointed out that Velvet Sundown had amassed a million plays on Spotify before they were revealed as AI-generated.[36] Both Sturges and The Herald's Derek McArthur pointed out that Norwood was cheaper than Hollywood actors,[37] though Jessica Karl of Bloomberg News pointed out that AI was expensive to generate.[38]
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